Coachella Lineup: Ranking by Facebook Likes

This is sort of a bullshit metric, but it discusses the placement of this year's acts on the poster.

Data visualization agency JESS3 decided to put the Coachella poster through a little experiment by ranking all musical 177 acts by the number of their Facebook fans to find out one thing: "Are the most popular acts getting their proper share of the spotlight?"

The answer: yes. Kind of. At more than 20 million Facebook likes, the Red Hot Chili Peppers is absolutely in the right spot on the Coachella poster. So are the other headliner bands Phoenix and Blur.

British headliner band Stone Roses didn't make the cut because they had less than one million Facebook fans. Other outlier bands include German DJ Paul Kalkbrenner, which has the second-highest amount of Facebook fans but is just squished in the middle of the lineup. Cafe Tacvba, which also has over one million fans on Facebook, is similarly positioned on the Coachella poster.

Re: Coachella Lineup: Ranking by Facebook Likes

This would, of course, be a broken system for the following reasons:

1. Fails to take into account musical influence or 'legacy' ie. Stone Roses and Blur
2. Generalizes to global popularity whereas this is a North American festival ie. Paul Kalkbrenner
3. Places too much emphasis on younger demographics, neglecting older fans and that population of people who 'just aren't that active on facebook'.
4. Fails to take into account stage/lighting production that each act is bringing to the table.
5. Rarity ie. reunions ie. Stone Roses

Still a fun way to look at the lineup tho. Paul Kalkbrenner must be really popular in Europe.

Originally Posted by icedKeg

it's like, at coachella, we can be a whole group of friends. a whole group of frogs jumping into the streets, jumping into the planet, climbing up the buildings, swimming in the lakes and in the bathtubs. we would be hundreds, thousands, millions. the biggest group of friends the world has ever seen, jumping and laughing forever. it would be great, right?

Re: Coachella Lineup: Ranking by Facebook Likes

I'd like to see the list if they put it in order of 'albums sold throughout career'

Originally Posted by icedKeg

it's like, at coachella, we can be a whole group of friends. a whole group of frogs jumping into the streets, jumping into the planet, climbing up the buildings, swimming in the lakes and in the bathtubs. we would be hundreds, thousands, millions. the biggest group of friends the world has ever seen, jumping and laughing forever. it would be great, right?